Old English Translation: The Wife's Lament

Hey everyone! I’ve been sick with COVID (please mask up). The wave here in California is no joke. I’ve had to work and teach remotely but have been getting plenty of rest.

Writing you here today with a favorite of mine from the Old English tradition, the elegy known as “The Wife’s Lament”. For those unfamiliar with the tradition of Old English elegies, they’re largely fragmentary and found in the Exeter Book — a 10th century manuscript also packed with TONS of riddles. Some folks consider some of the elegies to be riddles themselves — keep in mind that the medieval period may not have strictly divided (secular) genres as we do today. Many of the elegies deal with human loneliness, across genders.

This is all for now!

Alice

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe Wife’s Lament ​​​​​​​

I tell this tale all by my lonesome self,
along my journey. I may relate what
sad experience I have, since I increase,
recently or formerly, all but now.

Always I labor punishment on this journey of exile.
Before my lord left the people of tossing over the
waves; I should have sorrow at dawn
where my lord of land
then I sought to go on this journey,
a friendless wretch, because of my woeful need
began they, the men’s kinsmen, to think through
secret thoughts so that they should divide us two,
that we widest apart in all the world
living most wretched and me yearning.

My lord calls me to take a pagan shrine.
I have few and little, in this countryside,
Dear ones; and therefore my heart is sad.
When I myself am very similar to the unfortunate
man I found, sad in thought
mood concealing, intending murder –
We full often boast a happy demeanor
that us two divided, except death alone,
from anything else. After that is all changed
our two’s friendship is now as if it were
not so. I shall go far and near for my
beloveds, enduring feuds.
Commanded a man we to live in the groves of the wood,
under the oak tree in an earthen cave.

Old is this earthen hall, I am all goosebumps.
The valleys are gloomy, the high dunes,
bitter old forts overgrown with briars,
A place without joy. Very often the journey away of the
The lord afflicted me cruelly. The beloved friends
are living their lives, occupying beds,
then I go alone at dawn,
under oak tree, then throughout the earthen
cave. There I sit on summerlong day,
there I may weep my exile journeys
many labors, therefore I am not always
able to find rest from the sorrow of my mind,
nor all the longing that has afflicted me in this life.
Always is the young person to know sorrow,
The hard of the heart’s thought; just as it is
obliged to have happy mood, each of those breastcares
a multitude of sorrows. All his joys of the world
should be self sufficient, should he be in hostile
distant nations, that my friend sits under
a stone hilt frosted-covered by a storm
a friend weary in spirit, surrounded by water
in a dreary hall, this here my friend endures
much sorrow. He often recounts more joyful
places. Woe be him that shall be longing
And waiting for love.